Carey Baptist Grammar Middle School

Client:
Carey Baptist Grammar School

Location:
Kew, VIC

Completion:
2020

Size:
5,600m²

Carey Baptist Grammar School is a leading Christian co-educational independent school, committed to student-centred learning and well-being. It is an open-entry school with a philosophy of education that is based around a broad and challenging curriculum. The redevelopment of Carey’s Middle School building is a critical component of the school’s strategic plan to accommodate strong growth in student numbers.

Carey wanted to create a nurturing, inclusive and collaborative middle school environment where strong learning partnerships and supportive social relationships would give year 7-9 students the confidence to take risks with their learning and to push themselves to the point of challenge where learning occurs.

To support its positive education model, Carey sought to make learning more visible, more hands-on, and more inter-disciplinary, with spaces for longer periods of investigation and reflection to suit the needs of this age group.

In collaboration with school leaders, students and teachers, Architectus developed an Education Design Brief that responds to the specific needs of Carey’s Middle School students and their teachers. It describes six interconnected learning precincts, each of which is a physical expression of the subject it hosts and the learning experiences and resources students and teachers can expect to find there. Each learning precinct is composed of a wide variety of purposeful learning settings and clearly articulated circulation paths.

The Middle School scheme revolves around three key design elements: the formal determination of the building by its context, a fully developed education plan, and the creation of an architectural framework to support the education plan.

The south and west elevations comprise a series of boxes alternately slipped in and out within a fabricated steel frame that outwardly express the diagram of the internal plan. The proportions and modularity of these primary forms are a direct manifestation of the internal spatial requirements of the Education Design Brief, and a response to the fine physical grain of the building’s suburban context.

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The partnership between strategy and design has resulted in a dedicated new middle school building that looks outward while it nurtures inward.

“We wanted to break up that bulk and create something unlike your typical school – an open, connected environment that puts learning on display, a theme carried through the internal spaces to stimulate inquiring minds.”